London: A five-year-old girl in Britain has found a massive 160 million-year-old fossil while digging with her plastic beach spade.
Emily Baldry found the pre-historic specimen at Cotswold Water Park in Gloucestershire, Daily Express reported on Friday.
She was digging when her plastic spade struck something hard.
Her father Jon and palaeontologist Neville Hollingworth helped Emily dig it out and were left amazed to find a rare fossil. It was of a mollusc that lived in the oceans in the Jurassic period.
"She (Emily) is a very inquisitive little girl and got very excited about going on a proper dig. To find something like this was very special," Jon was quoted as saying.
Palaeontologist Hollingworth said: "I have been looking for these for around 25 years and only found three."
IANS
First Published: Friday, March 18, 2011, 13:32